| Most scholarly literature on corruption has not yet addressed the possible impact of international anti-corruption agreements on domestic corruption. As a result, this dissertation looks at the relationship between anti-corruption international treaties and controlling corruption within target countries. More specifically, the study initiates a more systematic approach for understanding the potential impact of the following international agreements: the OECD Convention against the Bribery of Foreign Officials, the UN Conventions against Corruption, and the Council of Europe Criminal Convention against Corruption.;Based on the two approaches undertaken here, namely, estimating a series of cross-sectional regressions and applying the logical operators of the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA), there is little evidence to suggest that these three international anti-corruption treaties have the expected positive impact on controlling corruption. Both the strength of formal commitment and to these treaties and its related length do not seem to have a consistent impact on the likelihood of curbing corruption. This research, however, shows that the OECD treaty appears to be more effective than the other two instruments, while also suggesting that stronger provisions and monitoring mechanisms also appear to make a positive impact on controlling corruption. The study also suggests that less corrupt countries are taking the initiative of tackling corruption abroad, while they are staying on the sidelines in terms of early commitment to weaker anti-corruption agreements. |
